Setting daily sugar at 25g

spacetastic

Hi, Newbi ish here. Is there any way I can set my target for added sugar at 25g in my diary? Thanks in advance 🙏🏻

yirara

There's no way to differentiate between natural sugar and added sugar. Sugar is sugar from a nutritional point of view.

AnnPT77

You can set your sugar target (total sugar) for 25g, but there's no way to do it for just added sugar. Added sugar is a pretty new thing on food labels in the US, so most of MFP's existing crowd-sourced food database has data from old labels (where it has accurate-ish data at all).

I can understand why even some healthy (non-diabetic/non-IR) people might want to work on limiting added sugar.

Here's a thought, from personal experience: I found that when I worked at reviewing my food diary, then gradually tweaking my eating (based on reviewing my food diary) to include all the good things I need nutritionally at a reasonable calorie level, it tended to be the calorie-dense/nutrient-poor things (like foods with added sugar) that dropped out of my eating patterns almost as an automatic by-product. As a bonus, other aspects of my nutrition improved, not just sugar intake.

(By "good things I need nutritionally", I mean adequate protein, healthy fats, adequate fiber, and plenty of varied, colorful veggies/fruits for micronutrient intake. For me, those foods are also more filling, so it's a double win.)

On top of that, if you read labels as you shop or use food now on your shelves, you'll quickly learn which are added-sugar bombs, making them easier to avoid if you want to do that.

I'm sure you realize that if your paramount goal is weight management, calories are the key thing to manage. Nutrition is important for other reasons, such as health, energy level, satiety, body composition, etc. Only calories affect bodyweight directly, though nutrition can affect weight management indirectly, through energy level or cravings/appetite.

Best wishes!